Getting our Rv today Had to tell someone !!
I can't wait to remodel it with "playa" in mind hehe. Does anyone have experience with installing floating laminate floors in rvs ? It's an old c class beater but it runs like a champ.

Burning Man isn't about the stuff you see when you get there ....it's about the people that brought that stuff there

Is there anything wrong with "Home Despot" for this georgia peach? Especially since the Emeryville one was sued for flagrent rudeness to a f2m transsexual. I know it's been settled and things are changed, but geez, some sense of decorum, please.

The Lady with a Lamprey

"The powerful are exploiting people, art and ideas, and this leads to us plebes debating how to best ration ice.Man, no wonder they always win....." Lonesomebri

jella wrote:Getting our Rv today Had to tell someone !! I can't wait to remodel it with "playa" in mind hehe. Does anyone have experience with installing floating laminate floors in rvs ? It's an old c class beater but it runs like a champ.

I am picking up some mismatched bits and pieces of laminate and just placing it over the trashed carpet. I am afraid to rip the carpet out, because I think it is holding the floor together. Good luck with your new baby!

jella wrote:Getting our Rv today Had to tell someone !! I can't wait to remodel it with "playa" in mind hehe. Does anyone have experience with installing floating laminate floors in rvs ? It's an old c class beater but it runs like a champ.

That's what I have, an old class C beater that runs like a champ and have thought it would be nice to put a laminate on it, but thought I would glue it. Why wouldn't floating work? It would be easier.

Thats one huge frigen slide in! ((that what she said, lol))
Captain do you leave your camper in all year? I was thinking one of the smaller jobs, sorta a pop up slide in deal. I'm pretty sure they're pretty light. It would just being sleeping quarters. I'd still have to have car ports for kitchen and living room. But Air Conditioned sleeping would kick ass!

Why don't ya stick your head in that hole and find out? ~pieholePlan for the worst, expect the best. Make the most out of it under any conditions. If you cannot do that you will never enjoy yourself. ~CrispyDave

Nope, I don't drive around all year with that 4000 pound camper on! I only drop it on when I wanna use it.
I don't think many pop-up style campers have air conditioners on their roofs and the fabric-sided pop-ups don't hold cold air very well either. If you want to sleep through the hot morning and midday in cold comfort (I can't recommend it highly enough!) you really ought to go with a hard-sided, non-pop-up unit. They come in all sizes, whatever truck you have there's a bunch out there available cheap that it can carry.

Class-C motorhomes have their strong points. If you want to tow a heavy trailer, DON'T get one, they have weak spindly rear frame extensions that you can bend, and the short wheelbase/long rear overhang of a class-C sucks real bad for heavy towing, it lets the trailer get way too much up-and-down and sideways torque and it'll drive like hell on the freeway. But if it doesn't have to do heavy tow duty, I'd recommend a class-C over a class-A. (just so everyone knows, a "class-C" motorhome is the kind with a van front end and motorhome body, a "class-A" is the flat-front, full motorhome body). After having owned several of both, I can tell you that class-A motorhomes are a FUCKING PAIN IN THE ASS to work on! The motorhome manufacturers purchase truck chassis from Detroit, then build a house on top of it, with no regard to how the hell you'll ever get it apart to fix it. The last one I had, I had to torch holes through the frame to get at the bolts holding the transmission in place, among other things. I know my way around a set of wrenches quite well, and I spent all day just changing the radiator. It was nearly impossible the way they built the damn thing.
With a class-C, most of the mechanical engineering and access is as Detroit (Chevy/Ford/Dodge) designed it. Still kind of a pain in the ass to work on, but at least it's possible without a chainsaw.
Class-Cs are also nice because they have front driver and passenger doors, and the windows roll down even! Front seat legroom sucks though... class-As can't be beat for that. Some As have a driver's door. I've had those, most are still a pain, not well positioned.

GreyCoyote: "At this rate it wont be long before he is Admiral Fukkit."Delle: Singularly we may be dysfunctional misfits, but together we're magic.

*remodel update *
decided after all to rip out the carpet, good thing since I found a little mold up front from an old leak Floor is strong though and It rained most of the day and dry as a bone so it's definately an old leak. We priced the pergo and well lets just say buying stick down tiles leaves alot of cash to spend on other things.
two hundred more tiny staples to go and we can start laying the tiles I'll post a before and after when I'm done .

Burning Man isn't about the stuff you see when you get there ....it's about the people that brought that stuff there

jella wrote:*remodel update * decided after all to rip out the carpet, good thing since I found a little mold up front from an old leak Floor is strong though and It rained most of the day and dry as a bone so it's definately an old leak. We priced the pergo and well lets just say buying stick down tiles leaves alot of cash to spend on other things. two hundred more tiny staples to go and we can start laying the tiles I'll post a before and after when I'm done .

I am looking forward to seeing the photos, as I am in the process of doing the same sort of thing - but I got some cheap laminate mismatched pieces. I am scared to actually rip out the carpet....

My old RV has a rubber mat floor on top of plywood (it used to be a transit bus). Easy to clean, yes. Comfy on bare feet no. So I throw down some long carpet runners, then take them outside after the trip and wham the dust off. Works pretty good, its nice to have something soft to pad around on inside I've never had a slide-in or class A or C but have had 2 travel trailers, the plus is if you have a good tow vehicle already a trailer has less mechanicals to fuss with than an old RV, but the down is that they are if anything even lighter built than an old truck frame RV...talk about toothpicks, tinfoil and staples! Beware the free Craigslist haul-aways unless you do some real going-over maintenance. Good luck on the motorhome makeovers, yes post pics!

Throughout this thread, most pro-RVers seem to mention the AC and fridge as a major benefit to brining an RV. As someone with no previous RV experience, I had imagined that running AC even for a few hours a day and keeping the fridge consistently cold would cause problems in terms of having enough gas to run the generator for the whole week? I'm planning to be there from when the gates open to the final exodus and I'm worried about the RV running out of power by the end.

Should I be concerned? Do you need to bring extra gas to keep up that kind of energy expenditure all week?

AC, Microwave, etc, run on AC 110 volt power from a small generator, gasoline or LP gas. Frig often are dual or even tri powered. In other words, will run on AC 110 generated by gas or LP powered generator, or directly on LP bottled gas. I've even had fridges that run on 12vdc from the battery as well, but that's less common.

Unless you are doing a lot of cooking and using a gas oven, heater at night, etc, you'll probably be ok on LP for a week or more. Gasoline for the external AC gas generator is another story. Likely if you run it very much, you'll need to refill every couple days. I recommend you check the oil as well when you refill gas, especially if you don't know the history of the generator.

The RV fridge will run on propane, as will the stove/oven, hot water heater, and furnace. If the tank is full, you'll have way more than enough propane for a week.
The furnace needs a little battery power for it's fan, the fridge a tiny bit for it's light and control board. The lights and water pump are battery.

The A/C is the big power draw, next is the microwave although of course that's only for short periods. You'll need the generator to be running for those, and you'll also want to run it a little every day because the RV will recharge it's batteries when the generator is running.

You can figure on about 1 gallon of fuel per hour to run most RV generators. It will draw fuel from the RV's gas tank, but the generator's fuel line is set up so it won't suck fuel after the gas tank gets below about 1/4 full, so you can't accidentally run the RV completely out of gas and strand yourself.

So: let's say you have a 50-gallon gas tank in the RV. If you arrive in BRC with it topped off, say in Gerlach just off the playa, you have about 3/4 of that available for the generator, roughly 36 gallons. Theoretically you've got about 36 hours of generator running time. If you want to leave the A/C on all day every day, (I do!) you'll need to bring more gas. Yep, you gotta bring your own.

A solar panel will help a little, maybe enough to keep the batteries topped off enough so you can operate most of the other RV systems, but unless it's an extremely large setup (that a rental RV isn't likely to have) it's not gonna make enough electricity for the A/C.

Last I checked, most RV rental agencies charged an additional $3/hour for generator running time, so remember to figure that into your budget too. Isn't that nice!

GreyCoyote: "At this rate it wont be long before he is Admiral Fukkit."Delle: Singularly we may be dysfunctional misfits, but together we're magic.

Cool! We'll be there in our vintage (yea... that really just means old) 1967 16ft aristocrat trailer.... It's already got a quirky red/white paint job... It is plenty comfortable for us but not big enough to feel isolated from what's outside....

I am thinking of putting in a swamp cooler soon though.....

Robert

[quote="winebuff"][quote="AntiM"]Art challenge: sew a giant RV cozy cover so it looks nifty and not like every other RV out there. I know it can be done, I've seen it. At least I'm assuming that was an RV under that giant pink rabbit....

Or set up a "front porch" with chairs and such so you can interact with people on the street.

Genius is right, baffle that bitch.[/quote]

Hi AntiM

That is a GREAT idea! I am bringing a vintage 68 traielr I bought because I joined the sisters on the fly vintage womens trailer group. Just got a bitchin paint job and that would kill 2 birds with one stone :)

Challenge is on to make it into something great and protect it...[/quote]